Budget-Strategy Mismatch

摘要

The Pentagon's Fiscal 2013 budget request doesn't match the new national defense strategy, which emphasizes air- and sea power rather than land forces, according to Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments. "If you look at [Fiscal] '12 to '13," the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps all gain, while "the Air Force goes down," Harrison said in an address at a Feb. 17 Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies presentation. Air Force-specific "blue" funding-excluding money passed to other defense and intelligence agencies-actually declines three percent in the Fiscal 2013 budget proposal. At the same time, Army-specific funding rises four percentage points, while Marine Corps funding effectively rises by one percent. Unlike the Air Force, ground services are funding personnel costs through the overseas contingency budgets instead of their baseline budget. As a result, they manage to maintain high personnel levels even as USAF has been forced to cut end strength. That "saves" the Army $4 billion and the Marines $1 billion respectively, said Harrison.